The Next 24 Hours
by Hayden Avery
Summary: Save his fourteenth, Chris had never hated his birthday more miserably than he did his eighteenth, stuck in the past surrounded by those who were unknowingly his family. But all in just 24 hours, two visitors the world he left behind and a wild chase through time to save the future will reveal everything and change more than he could've imagined, but will it be for better or worse?
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: No ownership of Charmed or any of its characters of any kind, purely written for fun.**

**AU—The story deviates largely from season six, and many cannon elements are different including but not limited to, ****_ages of characters_****, powers of characters, and past and future events that were in cannon. So just go with it as most of cannon will be different. **

Chris looked around the light blue in the nursery walls and remembered how they had looked in his own time when this would become his room and he would eventually repaint over the baby blue.

Wyatt gurgled happily, smiling at him without any inhibition at all, the way only children ever really smiled. Chris grinned back weakly; it was all he could manage.

He reached out a hand to Wyatt which the toddler quickly grasped, he had become quite fond of Chris in the couple of months since he had quit raising his shield every time his little brother was near.

Chris looked down at the two pudgy hands grasping his own.

_A strong grip twisted his arm where it held his forearm, the long fingers clamping down like an iron bar had dirt caked under the finger nails and were smearing the blood they were covered with on him where they touched him, while he sunk to the ground in pain as the hands kept twisting until his arm snapped. _

Chris gasped, yanking his hand back from the toddler Wyatt and blinking several times to get rid of the vision.

Toddler Wyatt was looking at him curiously and his lower lip began to tremble as he sat there confused by Chris's abrupt withdrawal. Chris stared at his brother's hand where they were curled near his sides, so little and weak with nothing on them. He swallowed and tried forget the image in his mind of what they would become if he failed_—too strong, unnaturally strong and covered in blood. _

Mel's face flashed in front of his mind, far too pale and with a sheen of sweat lining her forehead while she gasped for breath. How she had reached at his shirt but hadn't had the strength to clutch it as she laid there with her brow furrowed in pain and her fingers too covered with blood like her oldest brother's, but unlike him with her own blood instead of other's.

_"Chris..it's okay...Chris...it's okay Chris...I'll finally see Mom again..." _

Chris closed his eyes and exhaled sharply, trying to forget the dying words of a girl yet to be born.

_'Focus!' _He commanded himself, now was not the time to mourn a future that didn't have to be.

Opening his eyes Chris saw that Wyatt was about to cry and he reached out to him, smoothing his hair a little and mumbling. He tried not to think about what had happened when adult Wyatt had reached for their baby sister a year ago...or almost eighteen years from now.

Sometimes he thought the entire notion of time travel had driven him insane and he had imagined this whole thing. He was probably in a coma in some under-ground lair hiding with the resistance and this was all some strange dream world he had created. He snorted at the notion, he wished this had all been a dream but somehow he didn't think he had that kind of luck.

"It's okay...you didn't..._you_ haven't done anything wrong Wy...it's okay—_you're _okay." He kept mumbling to Wyatt until they both calmed down.

"You're okay right now Wyatt..I'll make sure it stays that way." He promised, like he did to all the ghosts in his memory every night.

Wyatt leaned back in his crib and fell asleep, his eyes slowly sliding shut to hide the bright blue irises and his little hands falling down to rest by his side. He seemed to be the perfect picture of an angel with his blonde curls and ruddy cheeks and Chris couldn't help but sigh at the irony of it all as he watched him.

Feeling a prickling on the back of his neck Chris tensed, he hated the feeling when he suddenly knew he wasn't alone but yet also knew they had been there for a while without him noticing. It wasn't a feeling he had often in his adult life, it normally would have meant death or at least imprisonment in his future after-all to be caught unawares.

The air went out of him all at once, it could almost be called a sigh but it was too tired, too quick and too stressed to fall into that category. It was more as if he was deflating, his shoulders even slumped the slightest although it was in such a small degree that no one save those who really knew him could have noticed. Then again there were a thousand tiny sign of his exhaustion, but he refused to let obvious indicators show. Nevertheless he couldn't help but let those small ones out, however they were relatively safe enough as only Wyatt, Penny, Melinda and _his _Piper would have seen the stress in his brow, or the bone deep tiredness in his eyes or the frustration in the set of his shoulders.

_'And there's no danger here of that,' _Chris thought bitterly to himself. It was true after-all, none of them were there.

Closing his eyes for a moment he opened them again and finally turned around. Leo stood by the door, leaning back against the frame in what could be a casual stance if it wasn't for the hard line of his mouth and the way he crossed he arms across his chest as if he was ready to threaten with them.

Chris waited for him to speak and he obliged.

"What are you doing here?"

"A little hostile for a so called pacifist aren't we?" Chris asked churlishly, doing his best to project an arrogance he had lost a long time ago. It was hard after-all to stay so self assured when your whole world is turned on it's side on your watch, and by your own brother no less.

"How'd you become so arrogant for a white-lighter?" Leo asked, and although it was meant as a rhetorical jab Chris could hear the small amount of curiosity lurking underneath it.

_"One day Chris you're gonna learn not to be such a cocky ass and I just hope I'm around to see it." _He flinched just slightly, Penny's light joking tone echoing in his mind. She hadn't lived to see him this way, to watch him loose his self assurance—his optimism.

"Future consequences." He said in reply to Leo, not even really hearing himself but simply replying in habit, without even really meaning to.

Leo ignored the statement, and looked over at Wyatt who sat, still sleeping peacefully in the crib behind Chris.

"I don't like you coming here."

"I was just—"

"Look Chris, just…stay out of here unless there's an attack or the sisters are with you. Okay?" Leo asked tiredly, the distrust clear as he looked on the whitelighter in front of him.

Chris just stared back, and finally gave a weak shrug to appear nonchalant before he left in a swirl of orbs. He normally could deal with Leo, but not today, today of all days was not the day for it.

The crisp fall air whipped around his face as he materialized on the bridge, looking out over the bay, it was strange he thought that first time he had been brought there had been with Leo and now he was using it to escape from Leo. He stumbled back ungracefully and sunk against the beams until he was sitting with his back against the cold metal and his knees curled in front of him. It was too cold up in the air to stretch out completely.

The sun was just beginning to rise and it created a beautiful sparkling surface on the bay as the sky behind it was dyed pink by the morning light.

Chris however wasn't really seeing it, he mind was going in circles faster than he could keep up with as he hunched in the cold morning on-top of the bridge wishing he had a room in the manor he could go back to. That of course didn't exist yet and wasn't an option.

_'Happy eighteenth to me,' _He thought darkly, wondering what the sisters would think if they knew their 'bitchy whitelighter' wasn't actually twenty two and that they had been under the guidance of a minor the entire time. Then again they were currently under the impression he was a true whitelighter and therefore actually dead anyways.

He snorted, a half grin quirking the corner of his mouth before it fell again. He supposed he was at least an adult now.

_'Or am I? Technically I haven't actually been born yet...maybe that falls into the ageless category?' _He furrowed his brow for a moment thinking about it. He had really come to hate time travel.

He wondered if his Mom would have thrown him a party for his eighteenth. He wondered if Leo would have even bothered to show up_—probably not_. He wondered if Penny would have tried to surprise him again only to have it blurted out by Mel before she could.

He wasn't sure. He was the first in his generation other than Wyatt to turn eighteen after-all, and Wyatt had long been past the stage of birthday parties on his eighteenth. And even if he hadn't nearly everyone had been dead by then anyways, he'd seen to that himself after-all.

Perhaps the demons had thrown him one though.

The thought irrationally made Chris laugh, he knew it really shouldn't have, it shouldn't have been funny that his brother, the killer who had seen to most of their family's deaths before seeing to the world's, had already been the devil himself by his eighteenth. But when he pictured Wyatt sitting on his thrown with one of those childish party hats on his head and with his favorite personal killers offering their king a slice of cake, he couldn't help but laugh.

He wondered if being in the past was making him insane. He swallowed, wishing he still felt the irrational, disproportionate amusement he had felt from the thought, but it had left him and now all he had in his mind were the cold hard, sobering thoughts of what the future was really like. It didn't involve party hats.

The weight of the world pressed into his shoulders as he shifted a little on the bridge. He had never wished more that he could ask his mother for advice, but then again she didn't exist yet, not really. Surely she wasn't this woman who looked like her, talked like her, had her powers and her name but none of her love for him. _No, she must not exist yet_, Chris decided, _not really anyways. _

Blinking a little Chris was embarrassed to feel his eyes stinging as the wind whipped around, he wasn't going to sit here and cry, even if he was alone. Clenching his fists and straightening his back Chris glared, just because he was technically just today becoming an adult didn't mean that he hadn't long ago stopped being a _child. _And only children thought tears did anything for anyone.

He pushed himself to his feet and took one more moment to look out over the bay. An image of Penny and Mel with icing covered spoons eating it straight from the bowl before it could be put on the cake came to his mind.

He smiled for a moment remembering the patchy cake that had had such a thin layer of icing it was transparent and even missing in big thunks leaving the yellow cake underneath plainly visible.

Mom had been so mad and Mel and Penny had both looked at the floor so sheepishly when she turned to them that he had started laughing so hard he almost fell out of his chair. They had gotten away with it after he had asked Mom to just leave them be about it, it was his birthday after all and he didn't really care about the cake and didn't want to see them in trouble for it. It had made him laugh after all.

She had agreed and they had sat down to eat the cake after pulling some whip cream out of the fridge to make up for the lack of icing. They had eaten it though, just the four of them together.

The Aunts had been too busy to come and the other cousins hadn't really wanted to so Chris hadn't insisted and at this point no one brought up Leo's absence as it had become the usual. But Chris hadn't minded, he had after had all of his favorite people there save his brother.

Wyatt had been busy with God only knows what, although at the time he had told Piper that he had an extra credit project for school that he needed to quickly run to the library for, he was supposed to come back however for his little brother's fourteenth but he never did.

Mel had accidently dropped her piece of cake on the floor and Mom had gotten her to go get a rag and get it cleaned up. How could any of them had known that not even twenty minutes later blood would be soaking the carpet there anyways.

He blinked back a few tears, swiping angrily at his face. Now was not the time, he could cry about it if he wanted when there was no reason to mourn—when he had fixed things, until then he wouldn't rest.

_'Chris...Chris...CHRIS,' _He growled slightly tracing his fingers around his temple where a headache was already growing, and closing his eyes, he orbed away.

"What Phoebe?" He asked irritably when he opened his eyes again, standing in the attic beside the book where all three sisters were there, Phoebe at the book and gathered Paige and Piper sitting on the old couch with Wyatt. Wyatt was being bounced on his youngest Aunt's knee as Piper smiled at the scene.

Of course when she turned to Chris the smile slid off and became more of a grimace, the distaste there clear as she frowned slightly at him. It was hard to reconcile the identical features with the woman who would someday wear them so differently when she called him her _'peanut.' _

He had always liked that nickname, far longer then most boys did but Wyatt had been right when he had said Chris was a momma's boy. By the time he was ten though he had started telling her to stop calling him that, she never though.

Realizing he had been staring too long, Chris turned slightly away to look at Phoebe, that particular look from Piper always left something bitter in the back of his throat. Mel would've said that the feeling got stuck there on the way to his heart, she had always had a funny way of thinking about things. But he didn't like to think about Mel anymore, at least not more than he could help it.

He had never thought the past would be quite like this. While he hadn't planned on telling them, it was just something that was too bizarre to announce to someone, he had still honestly thought that after a while they would realize who he was, the resemblance was so obvious after-all. He had never expected them to not even remotely like him enough to the point that they would consider that he might be family. No, Chris felt safe at least with his secret now knowing that their opinion of him would keep them from ever seeing the resemblance between he and Piper.

It still didn't make their cold shoulders any easier to deal with, although he had finally grown used to it. This was a mission he reminded himself, and not the time to be overly sentimental about relationships that didn't exist yet.

Time travel to change the fate of the world wasn't for the tender hearted anyways.

Realizing no one had responded yet, Chris sent a somewhat annoyed raised eyebrow Phoebe's direction to prompt an answer.

"There were demons here." Phoebe said simply, looking back down at the book just as quickly as she had glanced up.

Chris moved toward the book pushing birthday candles, icing, and blood stained carpets to the back of his mind. He scrunched his brow and jutted out his chin in a look that _his _Piper had once said was purely Prue, but of course this Piper didn't seem to notice that.

"Do you know who it was?" He asked.

"Obviously not or we wouldn't be looking." Piper snapped. He nodded at her and a moment later she looked at him slightly apologetically but he didn't acknowledge it.

They weren't family and they didn't need to apologize to him for snapping. They were the Charmed Ones, _not_ Mom, _not _Aunt Phoebe and _not _Aunt Paige, not yet anyways—right now they were just his charges, he reminded himself as he had done a million times every day since he had arrived through the portal.

"What did they look like?" He asked instead.

"Normal. Well as far as demons go, anyways. The whole black leather gig of course but other than that they looked human," Paige answered absently as she smiled at Wyatt when he giggled at something she did.

"How many were there?"

_"Ugh_ it's too early for this! I thought demons liked night time, y'know all dark and mysterious or whatever. Are they forming a breakfast club now or something? I haven't even had my coffee yet." Paige groaned.

Chris bit his tongue, the resistance had always been ready for an attack any time night or day, it was the only way they survived. But, he reminded himself, this wasn't the future yet and no one save him was used to living that way.

"Two, a man and a woman." Phoebe answered his question after giving Paige a sympathetic look.

"What did they do?" Chris asked, pacing around the book something which he knew annoyed the sisters but was a quirk he couldn't help when he was on edge.

"Just threw me against the wall and shimmered out. It was strange, they didn't try to attack us really, they just seemed to want to leave without getting vanquished. But why did they even come here in the first place then?" Paige asked.

Phoebe looked over at her with a resigned frown, and her arms crossed. "And to think I actually thought I would make my date with Jason tonight."

"Sorry sweetie," Paige put a hand on her shoulder. Chris only saw all the refugees that had been slaughtered in Warehouse Nine when it was discovered by Wyatt, he remembered how burnt most of their bodies had been. The thought didn't lend him to being sympathetic towards dinner dates.

"Can we focus here?" He asked snappily. The sisters glared at him, Paige rolled her eyes to top it off.

Chris had to forcibly stop himself from groaning. He had never expected the charmed ones to be so caught up in their 'personal' lives that vanquishing evil and saving the future would be a second priority. But then again they had no idea what the world was like where he came from, how even when he did something as simple as having a sip of coffee it seemed like an unimaginable luxury. And he supposed that as much as he wanted to he couldn't really blame for them for that, if he were living in this time and had no idea of the future, he thought he might have a hard time understanding just what it was really like too.

Piper looked thoughtful, "It was strange though how they—"

A twinkle of orbs interrupted her statement.

"Blessed be."

Chris wanted so slam his head in the wall but he didn't think that would do anything for the 'neurotic' label the sisters had already given him.

"Leo," Piper replied shortly, and Chris held back a smirk that at least he wasn't the only one not thrilled at the interruption.

Chris looked over at him finally and the serene expression on Leo's face made his blood boil. His precious golden child, the only child he had as far as he was concerned, would destroy the world if they didn't do something and he was standing there _smiling _at them.

Chris forcibly unclenched his fists, reminding himself that Leo didn't know that, that he had no idea of the horrors in the future.

"...he had longer blonde hair, and the girl—she looked latina."

Chris straightened, catching the last part of what Phoebe had described.

"_What?"_ He asked sharply, not caring if he sounded rude. It just couldn't be them, he prayed, because if he had heard what he thought he had, then his worst nightmare had come true.

"Phoebe was trying to tell you what the demons looked like, something that as their _whitelighter _you _might _be interested in," Leo offered unhelpfully, his expression clearly contemptuous of the obvious fact that Chris had not been listening.

The sisters looked short with him as well, then again irritation was never far from the surface when they dealt with him. He wasn't oblivious enough to not realize that he wasn't exactly their favorite person.

"Anyways, they left as soon—" Phoebe began again but Chris stepped toward her, towering over her and looking directly in her face as he demanded the answer.

_"What did they look like?" _

Phoebe took a step back, looking over warily at her sisters but Chris didn't notice, he was too intent on the answer.

"The man was tall...he had longer blonde hair, but it was gelled back—and the girl, she was about my height and—" Phoebe began hesitantly, clearly a little disturbed by the crazed look on Chris's face.

"Dark skin and brown hair?" He finished for her, his whole posture sagging for a moment as if he had aged ten years. He straightened immediately though and ran his hands through his hair, looking as unglued as he dared to be around the sisters but unable to help himself from reacting at this news.

His failure would doom the world and if this was true then he was doomed to fail.

"Yeah." Phoebe confirmed, biting her lip and squinting a little while she tried to get a read on him. She didn't succeed.

At her confirmation Chris wanted to punch something, wanted to hurl something across the room with his telekinesis that the sisters weren't even aware he had, weren't even aware it would be possible for him to have, he wanted to do so many different things that he wasn't even entirely sure what he wanted, but he was certain whatever it was it wasn't to stand there horrified at the truth like he was doing.

"You know of them?" Leo asked, placing Wyatt back with Piper and Paige from where he had picked him up to hold him. Chris followed the movement with his eyes and stared at Wyatt intently, which did not go unnoticed, before turning back to Leo.

"You do too." He replied simply, lifelessly almost, his voice coming from a deep place in his throat making it sound hoarse and weak.

"What?" Piper asked, her face scrunched in confusion as she tried to place the demons from an hour before in her mind, but she was certain she had never seen them before.

Chris sighed and started pacing again before he answered, looking at Wyatt again to make the point clear. His voice was quiet and for some reason he found he couldn't bring himself to make it any louder right then, but everyone heard him clearly regardless.

"He's sitting right there, just about nineteen years younger."

**Please Review**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

**Previously**

_"You know of them?" Leo asked, placing Wyatt back with Piper and Paige from where he had picked him up to hold him. Chris followed the movement with his eyes and stared at Wyatt intently, which did not go unnoticed, before turning back to Leo._

_"You do too." He replied simply, lifelessly almost. _

_"What?" Piper asked, not understanding what he meant. _

_Chris sighed and started pacing again before he answered, looking at Wyatt again to make the point clear. His voice was quiet and for some reason he found he couldn't bring himself to make it any louder right then, but everyone heard him clearly regardless. _

_"He's sitting right there, just about nineteen years younger."_

OoOoO

Chris rubbed the bruise on his jaw. It was tender and hurt like hell.

So did his sore back, cut with the glass from the window where he had been thrown out with a banishing spell.

Piper had stilled for a full minute at his announcement before she had said quietly, _'But they shimmered out.'_

Then _of course_ had come the denial. Because _of course_ they would never believe that their precious Wyatt could grow up to be anything other than the paragon of good. And they would certainly never believe it coming from their bitchy whitelighter who they barely tolerated, let alone trusted. No, Chris was once again trying to fool them, manipulate them for his own ends, whatever they were, of that they were certain.

Leo had then _of course_ seen fit to reveal how he knew it was Chris who had sent him to Valhalla. And he knew he had killed a Valkyrie. That had been the final straw for the sisters.

They would never realize though how sometimes he woke from nightmares of watching that Valkyrie's face, with Wyatt standing beside him in the dream giving him a congratulatory pat on the back and telling him what he had said before, words that always echoed in his nightmares, _'I didn't know you had it in you brother.' _

Valkyries weren't human exactly, the weren't actually killed. But Chris found those logical justifications did little to ease his conscious. It wasn't a demon, it wasn't a vanquish, and no matter what he said about it to himself, at night in his dreams the truth always came out; it was a murder. Only after seeing Mel's last breaths, Penny face frozen forever in an unheard scream, and the whole world burning before his mind's eye, had he found the power to do what had to be done. Up until then when he had made the fist, it had had no effect on the Valkyrie, but that reminder had pushed him on even if the act stained his soul. His soul was already battered from a war that hadn't happened yet anyhow.

But of course there could be no sympathy from Leo, there never had been even in the future when he was the man's _son_. No, the sister's didn't know any of that either, and after declaring him evil they had banished him from the manor, from his home.

_'I never want to see you again.' _

He winced at Piper's words, hearing them over again in his mind.

His back was sore and blood trickled down his face from a nasty cut at the top of his temple.

He scowled at the sky as if it was to blame for his lack of healing powers. Of course it was just another power Wyatt had that he hadn't inherited. Although Aunt Paige had always told him she thought he had it in him and it would develop in time, he didn't know if he believed her anymore though. She had been wrong about so many things after all.

_'Your brothers fine Chris, he's just grieving give him time.' _

He snorted at the phantom voice in his head, at least, he supposed morbidly, she had seen how wrong she had been in the end. He flinched at the cruelty of the thought but could not find it in him to take it back, he felt no charity towards the sisters at that moment; the most powerful witches of the age who in one timeline had already ignored the coldness in their oldest child as it grew until it consumed him, and were trying to once again stick their head in the sands now even as Chris did everything save waving a flashing neon sign in front of their faces to make it clear where they were headed.

In either timeline, they were far too self assured.

Seeing lightening crackling at his finger tips, Chris tried to control his temper. Now was not the time to unleash a power that he had never learned to control again, the last time had been terrible.

At least Chris supposed he had true telekinesis, Wyatt had telekinetic orbing, but Chris was the one that got their late Aunt Prue's true power and the more powerful form of it where that was concerned. Although Wyatt had so many other powers that it hardly mattered really.

For all his power Chris thought he knew what the outcome would be if he and Wyatt ever truly fought, and it would not be in his favor. Wyatt would always be the twice blessed after-all no matter how he had decided to use those powers.

Although in the end it was hard to say for certain, it had never come to that, neither could bring themselves to kill the other although they wouldn't admit it and so neither ever unleashed their full power against the other.

Chris didn't like to think about it often.

In hindsight he probably should have made something up, should not have tried to, for once, tell the sisters the truth. Of course they wouldn't believe the devil in all black _shimmering_ out of the attic had been precious, baby Wyatt. He had been stupid to think honesty was an option.

But now he had a whole new host of problems. His brother and his brother's favorite little assassin, the one who murdered Penny, were back in his time, and Chris knew they couldn't be there for any good reason.

_"Great… just fucking fantastic." _He muttered to himself. They were there to collect him he knew, drag him back to the future before he could save it in the past.

And this time Wyatt might just kill him.

OoOoOo

Piper stared at her blonde headed baby boy while he slept. He just looked _so_ innocent; it made her heart break to think of everything in the world that wanted to destroy him.

She sighed and blinked back a couple of frustrated tears, now was not the time for that. Sometime she felt like she could never catch a break.

"Leo?" She called, and stood, looking towards the ceiling waiting for a response. None came.

Sighing she went down stairs to cook _something,_ she wasn't sure what yet and there was no one there to eat it, but at the moment she didn't care.

She pulled out her cookie pans and the mixing bowl and without thinking about it at all starting making double chocolate chip cookies. Phoebe's favorite.

It was time like this that she missed Prue so much that she felt physically ill, like someone had punched all the wind out of her and it was never coming back.

_"In My future…Wyatt—he becomes the source Piper, the source of all evil." _

She fisted the dough so hard it squeezed out of her fingers and she closed her eyes for a moment to collect herself.

It just couldn't be true. Afterall, Chris had never been completely honest with them, so why should this be any different? She shuddered to think what he could have done to Wyatt had they not finally realized that he was no friend to the family and gotten him away from her baby boy.

It was too hard to think of all the damage that _could_ have been done all for her failure to call a spade a spade.

_"I'm Chris Perry. I'm from the future, I came to save Wyatt." _

Why had she ever let him near her family? She was supposed to be the oldest, the protector, the wisest, and she had failed so badly. It all could have gone so wrong.

She spread the cookies out evenly on the pan and rinsed her hands while she set the oven to preheat.

She went in the living room and turned the TV on, numbly watching a soap opera. It didn't make her feel any better but at least it kept the mantra of _'failure, failure, failure' _from ringing quite so loudly in head.

Piper kept watching the show without even paying attention to it until she got a prickling on the back of neck that made her tense uneasily, she felt like she was being watched even though there was no indication of anything amiss in the house.

She got up and irrationally went to check on Wyatt even though with the monitor she knew he just fine. Nevertheless she released a breath she hadn't realized she was holding when she saw him still asleep in his crib, not a hair out of place on his blonde head.

Sighing she went back downstairs to the oven where the cookies were now overdone, bordering on burning.

Throwing a pair of mitts on she yanked them out of the oven, grimacing at their blackened edges.

_"Dammit,"_ she muttered tearfully, couldn't she get anything right?

"Now, now mother, you always told me to watch my language, wouldn't want to set a bad example now would we? Besides they're not burnt too badly."

A hand reached out and plucked a cookie right off the tray in front of her. She jumped back, automatically raising her hands defensively as she looked up at the owner of the voice. It was a tall man with long, dark blonde hair oiled back from his face which looked familiar to her in a way she couldn't place but knew deep in her gut that she had seen it before. He stood there casually in the kitchen as if he owned the house, taking a bite out of her half burnt cookie with a dangerous smirk on his face.

_"Who are you?" _She demanded, part of her wondering why she hadn't blown him up already but something she couldn't explain stayed her hands.

"Please tell me Chris hasn't driven you crazy already. I just told you who I am, _mother." _

She balked, taking a step back at how pleased he looked with himself at that statement and watching in shock as he sat down at the bar stool as if he was a guest.

"No. No—that's not possible." She said strongly, although it wasn't stopping her mind from already cataloguing his every feature and finding a horrible truth in how they matched the sleeping boy upstairs.

He smirked, his dark blue eyes twinkling madly. "Don't you recognize me?" He asked, a feigned note of hurt in his voice, spoiled by the cruel grin on his face.

"Get out of my home." Piper replied shakily, taking another step back and being startled when her back hit the counter. Her hands shook as she kept them raised at the man.

"Or what mother? You'll ground me?" He asked amused, grinning like the cat that caught the canary.

_He's lying, this is an illusion. _She thought desperately to herself.

He stood walking around the bar and towards her and for all nerve she had, Piper still found herself paralyzed in front of this thing with the grown-up face of her baby boy.

He stopped a few feet in front of her, all traces of amusement gone from his face.

"Where's Chris?" He asked, his voice hard and cold.

"Chris?" The question slipped out of her lips without her even realizing it and she heard it numbly in a detached sort of way and still wasn't sure why she'd asked. She shook her head to clear it.

"Who are you, what do you want and why are you here?" She finally asked, straightening her back and looking him in the eye.

_'I'm a charmed one dammit, and I'm not going to be taken in by a stupid trick. This isn't Wyatt.'_ She thought to herself firmly.

"And be _honest_ this time." She added, finding her spine and being ashamed in the back of her mind that she had let his appearance throw her off so much for even a moment.

"I already told you Moth—"

"Call me mother _one more time _and I'll blow your ass back where you came from so fast you won't know what hit you," She threatened.

He smirked again and it her fingers itched to follow through on her threat although she had a sense of dread in her stomach that she was ignoring.

'_This can't be Wyatt. He's lying, they're both lying.' _

She raised her hands even further at him.

"I don't have time for this." He snapped, his voice loosing it's smooth and rehearsed quality to grow rough, and violent.

"Where _is _Chris?"

"I don't know what game you're trying to play here buddy, but you can take it somewhere else. He's not welcome here anymore, and if you don't leave now I'll show you just how_ unwelcome_ you are." Piper kept her voice strong and raised her hands higher to emphasize the point.

The man—_no demon_—she corrected herself, eyebrows raised and he turned his head toward her, studying her curiously. _"He's not welcome here anymore?" _

She blanched, furrowing her brow in confusion at the demon's incredulous tone.

"Did you think we would never find out what you were up to? What he's planning?" She asked angrily.

"What we're up to?" He repeated, his lips curling in that God awful smirk again.

"You don't know, do you? Oh, this is _priceless…" _The demon laughed at her.

"Oh Mom, how _clueless_ you truly are."

"I told you _not _to call me that!" Piper snapped, finally sending all of her power at him in one big burst.

It met a blue shield and disappeared into nothing.

She stared horrified, but unable to turn away.

'_His shield, his blue shield. Wyatt's shield…No, this can't be happening.' _Piper shook her head in denial.

He smirked again from behind it, "I told you Mother. Now play nice, I'll be out of your hair just as soon as I collect _little Chrissie_. You won't put up much of a fight now will you? Afterall, he's not even welcome _here." _

He laughed again at a joke she didn't catch and then disappeared in a halo of black orbs.

Piper stood there too horrified to move for a moment before she did the first thing that came to her mind.

"LEO GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE _NOW!"_

She waited a moment before adding, "AND I SWEAR IF YOU SAY _'BLESSED BE' ONE MORE TIME, _I'LL BLOW YOU BACK TO WORLD WAR TWO!"

OoOoO

Chris swallowed, tasting the metallic, tangy taste of his own blood filling his mouth. He smiled at the demon with his split lip and teeth coated in red with his own blood. This was his zone, the _fight,_ it was how he had lived his life since he was fourteen and sadly he now found it a much more comfortable environment than his mother's kitchen. There was no doubting, no complications, just him and the demon and for once Chris's head felt clear while he vanquished demon after demon.

"That all you got?" He asked cockily, being rewarded with an enraged roar from his target which was rising from it's spot on the floor. Normally Chris would have finished it while it was down but today he felt like toying with this one for a minute.

He recognized this demon, this thing which would have killed one of Paige's favorite charges in the future, slowly torturing the poor witch to death. Chris watched amusedly as it circled him warily, looking for an opening, a fire ball sitting idly in its hand by it's side. If only it knew it had a Halliwell in front of it, then Chris thought, it wouldn't be so keen and eager as it stared at him hungrily thinking it could take his powers.

"Interfering _whitelighter, _you aren't supposed to fight." It hissed out, it's horns growing out of an otherwise human head, glowing orange has it's temper escalated.

Chris laughed darkly, arching an eyebrow. "I'm no whitelighter."

It stared at him, cocking it's head to the side curiously. "What are you then?"

"Wouldn't everyone like to know." Chris rolled his eyes and raised his hands out in front of him allowing all of his anger, which was quite a lot, to flow through him until the electricity, deadly in voltage, spewed from his finger tips and in a mere split second, left l nothing but a pile of ash where the upper level demon had been.

_'Leo may have been a bastard but at least he left me something good.' _Chris thought, lowering his hands and trying to shake off the after effects of his elder inherited electrokinesis, a power even Wyatt didn't have for it was Chris who was half _elder_.

Although Wyatt had so many others that it hardly mattered, the warren line powers weren't exactly light weight afterall and Wyatt did have _all _of them and his white lighter gifts to boot.

He put his hands by his sides, swallowing and sitting down on the barren rock behind him.

_'The really should get a new decorator down here,'_ He thought to himself, looking around the gloomy cavern that could have been anywhere in the underworld. It was ridiculous sometimes how much it all looked the same.

The adrenaline from the fight began to leave him and he looked down at his hands shaking in his lap.

He hated that power. He had never learned to control it. Leo had been supposed to come start training him to use it the day before his fourteenth birthday, to help him with it, it was right then that it had started developing. Of course he hadn't come, even when Chris gained a power to rival Wyatt he couldn't be bothered.

Chris took a deep shaky breath, and shook his head. He had only used that power a handful of times in life, for Chris knew if there was any power he had that would make him like Wyatt, that would destroy him, it was that one.

He stood up and looked over at the ash again. He didn't regret the vanquish, but looking back at his shaking hands which he had to force himself to still, he wondered why he hadn't just used his telekinesis like he normally did. His safe power that he could _always _control, what had come over him to stray from it?

_'I need to keep moving,' _He thought to himself. For once in his life since he was fifteen, he had absolutely no plan. He couldn't go back to the manor, and while he didn't need it anyhow, the sister's help was entirely not an option. He wasn't sure what that would mean for his mission but he did know that if Wyatt killed him it wouldn't really matter anyways, he wouldn't be around to try to continue it.

He wondered if Wyatt would kill him this time. In the past, no matter how he would torture him, no matter how many innocents he would murder, no matter how many of his very own little cousins he would kill, even after he killed Aunt Phoebe, he hadn't been ready to kill Chris. No, he had wanted Chris to rule with him, to join him so that they would be invincible.

Looking at the pile of ash in front of him, Chris couldn't help but think that yes, they really would be unstoppable, he and Wyatt together instead of fighting each other. He pushed that thought away as soon as it occurred to him like he always did, he would save the future and then he and Wyatt would fight together, on the side of _good. _

But still, it didn't stop him from wondering, _would Wyatt kill him this time if he caught him? _This was after all the most dangerous thing he had ever done, the most threatening to Wyatt's reign.

He didn't want to think about it, the answer to that question was one he thought he might just be better off not knowing.

The one thing he was sure of was that he couldn't let Wyatt catch him and the best place until he could come up with a plan was the underworld, he knew it like the back of his hand after all and he would not be sensed there.

He looked back at the pile of ash, he knew that demon had not been the one to turn Wyatt, that there was no chance of it. And he had promised himself that he would only vanquish the demons that were a possibility for Wyatt's turning, which as stood was still a staggering amount. Yet now he had abandoned that rule and changed the future in a way he hadn't been planning to.

Then again, he had already changed the future with all his other vanquishes and all the one's he had drug the sisters, what was one more?

He would stay in the underworld for now, until he had a plan to deal with Wyatt and complete his mission.

_'And if I vanquish some more demons while I'm at it, so be it. Future consequences be damned.' _He thought to himself, his hands curling into fists at his side as he thought of what hell hole to orb to next in the underworld.

He rubbed his jaw where it had grown even more tender from Leo's punch as it turned black and blue. He once again cursed Leo for not passing him on his healing power, and then having the nerve to punch him as if to unknowingly rub it in. _'Thanks for the birthday gift Dad,'_ he thought to himself bitterly.

Chris's birthdays had always been terrible so he wasn't sure why he had thought that in the past, before the day actually even became his birthday, that he would have any better luck. He pushed it out of his mind, now was not the time to dwell on that.

Not being able to help himself though, his last thought before he orbed away as he looked around the bleak cave, was a very acerbic, _'Happy birthday to me.' _

OoOoO

"Well honey, I mean we don't _know_ that it was him—"

_"He had his shield Phoebe_. Wyatt's shield." Piper stressed, sitting on the couch with her hands in her hair as she tried to find some relief from the headache that felt like a gigantic balloon of pressure was building solely to press on her skull and make her feel miserable.

"There are other powers that have a shield." Leo said, staring at the wall in his golden robes, the disquieting thought that perhaps Chris had been right growing louder in the back of his mind.

"I'm his mother Leo, I _know _what his shield looks like, _that_ was it." Piper rebutted, her voice hoarse and scratchy.

He sighed, "I'm just saying Piper that—"

"Leo, it was him." Piper interrupted forcefully.

"Piper how could you know that. Do you even really know what you saw—"

_"DON'T treat me like a child, Leo. _Maybe not all of us can be all knowing, hypocrites in gold robes, but we're still adults_."_ She bit out coldly.

Phoebe and Paige both stared on, neither sure what to do as they watched Piper glare at her ex-husband through watery eyes.

Leo backed away, his hands splayed out by his sides in a pacifying gesture.

"Piper, it _is_ possible that it could have been a trick. _You don't know that it was him." _Leo interrupted.

"Exactly, there's a good chance that it wasn't him." Paige injected, scowling at Phoebe who had pinched her in an effort to stop her from interrupting them.

"You didn't see him," Piper refused.

"Piper, it was a look alike with a blue shield, are you really going to let that, and that alone convince you it was your son when you know that there's someone out there who _wants _to convince you that and has manipulated us all along and wouldn't _hesitate_ to do it again." Paige implored, sitting beside her and putting a hand on her eldest sister's shoulder.

"We just shouldn't jump to any conclusions," Phoebe offered, going to sit on her other side.

Piper took a deep breath, looking from her sisters to Leo who all looked at her expectantly.

"Okay, you're right. Let's not jump to any conclusions, we should…." Piper stopped looking for the word.

"Research?" Leo suggested.

"Somehow I don't think there's a _lying bitchy whitelighter from the future_ section in the book." Paige arched an eyebrow.

Piper stood from the couch, crossing her arms over her chest as she walked towards the window and stared out into the sunny street.

She spoke while she watched two girls across the street laughing while they played jump rope.

"No, no there's not. But there _are_ summoning spells."

**Please Review**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

**_Previously_**

_"Okay, you're right. Let's not jump to any conclusions, we should…." Piper stopped looking for the word._

_"Research?" Leo suggested. _

_"Somehow I don't think there's a _lying bitchy whitelighter from the future_ section in the book." Paige arched an eyebrow. _

_Piper stood from the couch, crossing her arms over her chest as she walked towards the window and stared out into the sunny street._

_She spoke while she watched two girls across the street laughing while they played jump rope. _

_"No, no there's not. But there _are_ summoning spells." _

OoOoO

Chris sent the demon flying into the cavern wall with a flick of his wrist, it was impaled on one of the tall jagged rocks and it promptly burst into flames.

"Bastard," he mumbled, looking at the pile of ashes coldly, the face of a dead resistance whitelighter flashing in front of his face, one who could have healed Patty a week later when she died had he not been killed by this demon.

_'Fuck future consequences,'_ he thought to himself as he kicked his boot through the ashes, spreading them across the cavern floor. The thought had become his mantra has he went on his vanquishing spree, not even trying to justify to himself that these might be demons that turn Wyatt and instead just enjoying the revenge on those who had yet to commit heinous crimes against his friends and family, but certainly had in his past. It was a twisted sort of revenge really, but seeing as it was demons, Chris wasn't exactly about to start feeling guilty over it.

He felt the lightening crackling at his finger tips, begging to be called upon but he ignored it as he turned to see another demon, just a lower level one from some clan or another that he couldn't be bothered to remember at that moment, slouching towards him.

It's face was grotesquely deformed and the skin seemed to be rotting. Randomly enough his thought as he vanquished it, sending it straight into the rocks where he had sent the other, was that he should really video tape some of these sometime and make a few bucks selling it as a B-rated horror-action movie like the ones he and Mel used to watch on Saturday nights before the world came to an end.

He reached up and tiredly wiped away the sweat on his brow. He was exhausted but he knew he couldn't stop, if he did, even in the underworld, Wyatt would catch him. And that was something he could not allow to happen.

He closed his eyes as he prepared to orb away but before he could he felt a strange tugging sensation behind his navel, and his eyes popped open in panic as he began to realize what that meant.

_'No, please tell me that they didn't—' _The thought was interrupted by the attic appearing before his eyes along with three women who he knew all too well.

The crystals at his feet hummed with energy, trapping him orbs and all.

"You can kick me out, but you can't just—" Chris began angrily but was interrupted by Piper.

"We can and we are."

He noticed Leo then, standing off in the corner with his arms folded over his precious gold robes. Chris's fingers itched to unleash the power he had given his second on him, the only thing he had ever done for Chris. But he restrained himself, that power was after-all far too dangerous.

"Now, why don't you tell us what exactly it is you're here for?" Piper asked, stepping closer to the cage and glowering at him.

"Because _you summoned me."_ Chris bit out. They if possible, looked even more furious with him for his answer. It brought a small bitter grin to his face; Penny always had said that he was far too much of a smart ass and that he had the worst timing with it.

Piper's face turned red and he saw her hands twitch slightly, something he knew meant she wanted to blow something up badly, it was a state he hadn't driven her to very often in the future.

"Why are you in here, in the past?" Phoebe asked pointedly, placing a hand on Piper's shoulder to calm her down.

"Future consequences." He replied, his tone indifferent and his face unreadable.

"You lost your right to future consequence when you sent Leo to Valhalla, when you _murdered _a Valkyrie, and when you tried to feed us the bullshit that Wyatt is evil in the future. _So tell us why you're here." _Piper demanded.

Leo and Paige, content to stay in the background until then, stepped up to flank the older two sisters.

Chris crossed his arms over his chest and stared back at them stubbornly from behind the crystals.

"I told you the truth, if you're too blind to see it, then you're the same in this timeline as the other one and the whole world will pay for you being a mother who thinks her kid's problems are everyone else's." He said coldly keeping his face impassive as Piper flinched. However a terrible shame began to burn in the deep part of his chest the moment the words were out. _His _Piper had been a wonderful mother, but he didn't much care for this one, or at least he tried to tell himself so.

"How dare you?" Piper asked, raising her hands slightly.

"Go ahead," he taunted, curious if she would actually do it. "Come on, go ahead and try to blow me up, give me your best shot."

She closed her eyes and began to lower her hands patiently but some reckless part of Chris that he thought he had lost a long time ago, took all the hurt and anger that he had been denying he felt since he came to the past, and acted on it.

So he taunted her with the one thing he knew would make her act, "Go ahead, take a shot at me. It's you that raises a _murderer _who slaughters—"

His shoulder, too close to his heart for comfort, exploded in pain. Chris gasped as he was knocked against the back wall of the cage, being zapped from that and pushed to the ground. He hadn't thought it would hurt that badly, he had been wrong.

Nevertheless he looked up unblinkingly, ignoring the blood spilling and the burnt skin which _hurt_ on his chest. He straightened his spine and climbed shakily to his feet looking at them all challengingly.

"Why, _what_—" Paige began, her lips turned down at the corners in confusion.

Leo was the one that connected the dots, "You're no whitelighter."

Chris set his jaw even more stubbornly but didn't outwardly respond.

"What are you? How did you steal a whitelighter's powers?" Paige demanded, stepping forward.

Chris chuckled bitterly, "Why should I tell you? You won't believe me anyway."

"Why should we? All you've done is lie since you got here!" Phoebe added. He just looked at her, there was really nothing he could say to that afterall, it was true.

"You've been trying to hurt Wyatt this whole time."

He switched his gaze to his mother, and snorted, too tired to do anything but laugh at the irony that it was the Charmed ones who would end up sealing their own fate for a future that they would be horrified by if they could see it.

His arm had gone numb now and he was beginning to feel lightheaded, he looked down to notice the blood soaking his shirt.

Phoebe followed his gaze and noted how he seemed to sway on his feet ever so slightly. "Maybe we should heal him for now," she suggested softly.

Piper shot her a murderous glare but taking a second look at Chris, begrudgingly nodded her head.

"We can't let him out of the cage," Leo countered. "We have no idea what he's capable of."

"He's going to die if we leave him there though," Phoebe said worriedly.

Chris just watched, knowing nothing he said would make a difference. And besides, with him sitting trapped and above ground, Wyatt would be there soon enough anyways. Despite the horror of the situation he could not help but think of it in a detached sort of way, he wondered if that was because he was so lightheaded from the wound or whether he was just tired of fighting.

"Why don't we just knock him out, and then you can heal him and then we'll place the crystals back." Paige suggested simply.

Leo frowned but nodded. Phoebe walked over to the where she had her note pad and pen and wrote for a few moments, crossing out and editing as she went.

She handed it over to Paige and Piper, the former of which raised an eyebrow at it.

"That is so not proper English."

Phoebe put her hand on her hip, "You write it then, all this rhyming is a bitch,who made the rules of magic anyway." She mumbled grumpily.

"It'll work," Piper waived her on.

She set her shoulder back and moved to stand in front of him the cage.

_"Take this man who through time he has traveled,_

_Let him sleep to heal so that his mystery can be unraveled_

_Not to wake until he is contained _

_So our safety is maintained' _

Chris's world went black.

OoOoO

_Mel sat beside him as they watched a terribly fake looking werewolf chase after a girl who's acting was mediocre at best and had far too much cleavage showing to be at a winter resort, the premise of the movie. _

_"I don't even feel that bad for her if she dies honestly, the whole reason she was out there was because she was trying to cheat on that other guy," Mel commented, shoveling a handful of popcorn in her mouth as she did. _

_Chris didn't respond and she waited a moment before adding. "I sweat the sluts always die first in these things." _

_His head snapped up and he swatted her lightly on the arm, "You're like eleven, don't say that." _

_"Oh please, slut is not that bad of a word, and I've heard you say a lot worse. Just because Mom thinks you're some kind of saint doesn't mean you have everyone else fooled," she responded with an eye roll. _

_The victim's fake sounding scream interrupted them and they both turned back to the TV in time to grimace. "I think they over did the blood and guts just a hair." _

_Chris nodded, reaching over to yank the popcorn bowl out of Mel's lap so he could have some. _

_He ignored her squawk of protest. "You've eaten like half the bowl already." He said, holding it out on the other side of the couch as far as his arm would stretch as she tried to snatch it away from him._

_"Penny is so right about you all." She said huffily with a roll of her eyes as she finally realized she wasn't getting the popcorn bowl back._

_"Penny thinks she's right about everything," Chris drawled with a roll of his eyes in return. _

_"Boys are pigs," Mel insisted, trying to snatch some more popcorn out of the bowl as Chris returned it to his lap, but he yanked it away again just in time. _

_"You've eaten half the bowl already!" He protested again. _

_"Pigs," She muttered disdainfully. _

_"Glad you think so, it'll save me some trouble when you get older." Chris said, rolling his eyes again._

_"Keep doing that and they're going to get stuck that way." Mel said to him._

_"You so stole that from Mom."_

_She shrugged but didn't deny it. "And what do you mean it will save you trouble?" She asked, crossing her arms and trying to glare at him. _

_"Well if you keep eating this much popcorn and saying all boys are pigs, I won't have any to chase away in a few years." He replied nonchalantly. _

_She rolled her eyes, "I'm pretty sure that's a dad job, not a big brother." _

_Chris waved his arm around flippantly in a gesture that said, 'Do you see Dad around?'_

_Mel frowned and shrugged. "Whatever, you're still not going to dictate my personal life someday." She replied airily._

_"Ooh, dictate your personal life, big phrase there. Did you hear Aunt Phoebe say that the other day or something?" _

_"No!" Mel protested indignantly. But a moment later with slightly red cheeks she mumbled, "She might have written it in her column though."_

_Chris grinned at her triumphantly and she smacked him on the arm. _

_"Ow," he said dramatically, making a show of cradling the arm she had hit. _

_She rolled her eyes. _

_The door opened and they turned their heads to see who it was as the footsteps approached them. It was Wyatt. _

_He was dressed in a navy blue collared shirt and kaki shorts, his feet casually in a pair of brown leather flip flops. He seemed innocent enough but there was already a coldness and something unreachable in him that had been there, as Chris had learned through eavesdropping on various occasions, sometime since he was two and something happened to him. Nobody in the family ever talked about it, and while not as close as they were to each other, the two younger siblings still loved their older brother even if they struggled to understand him at times. _

_Chris and Mel both said something in the way of greeting, but he seemed to walk right past them without even a glance. Chris shrugged it wasn't unusual enough for Wyatt to completely ignore them, but he did wonder what had set him off this time. _

_As he watched him walked through the living room, not sparing them a glance, he was alarmed to see his hair begin to lengthen, his cloths morph into black pants, black boots and a black shirt, and his height grow taller. _

_"Wyatt what—?" He began to ask, as Wyatt turned to face them, standing in front of the TV with his arms crossed. Only there was no TV behind him anymore. _

_And Chris looked around and was bewildered to find himself in a cavern that looked like the underworld. He looked back at Mel to ask her what was going on since he was beyond confused but when he turned a scream erupted and died on his lips, his blood going ice cold as he stared in horror at the row of corpses besides him. _

_His mother was the closest, a deep stab wound in her abdomen. Paige was next, a dark lighter arrow in her heart. Uncle Coop with his neck black and bruised from strangulation, and beside him was Phoebe, her head severed from her body. Uncle Henry laid there in his uniform, strangled the same as Uncle Coop. Then his little cousin Patty, a bullet hole of all things in her chest, and beside her Penny with her entire body mangled and crushed out of form, bludgeoned beyond belief. Little Prue and Charlotte both laid with their heads bent unnaturally. And lastly Mel laid there with an abdomen wound eerily like Piper's and her eyes glassy and distant. _

Chris sat up abruptly, gasping for breath with sweat lining his brow. He turned and vomited on the floor in the cage beside him, too horrified to even care how disgusting it was.

He had no time to recover however, as soon as he quit gagging, he saw from where he was, heaved over on all fours, the toe of a black boot standing right outside the edge of the cage.

"Come so far to fall so low, have we brother?" The tone was cruel and mocking and it made Chris's blood turn cold.

Chris closed his eyes and stayed there for a moment bent over with his back exposed and vulnerable, he couldn't bring himself to care for the moment though.

When the moment passed he pulled himself up to his feet, and looked his brother squarely in his blue eyes.

Somewhere in the back of his mind he noted the little assassin standing of to the corner, but he didn't pay her much mind.

Wyatt smirked at his own private joke he apparently wasn't sharing with the rest of the world as he crossed his arms over chest and looked Chris over.

"You betrayed me for _this?" _He asked, the disgust dripping from his tone.

"I didn't betray you Wyatt, I went back to save you," Chris answered warily.

"From what exactly?" Wyatt asked.

_"From yourself!" _Chris exploded, stepping towards his brother only to remember the cage separating them.

"From all of this, this isn't who you're supposed to be. Something happened to you to make you this—"

"Enough." Wyatt interrupted, all traces of humor gone from his face. "I do not need to be _fixed. _There is nothing wrong with me."

He turned away from Chris then and began walking away, his head raised slightly to the ceiling and his hands clasped behind his back.

"I have seen the truth Chris." Chris rolled his eyes as he mouthed the words in time with Wyatt as he said them. It was always the same speech every time.

"The truth that there is no good or evil, only a pointless fight that never ends that those who called themselves elders loved to watch from their little thrones in the heavens. A fight that has cost our family far too much, and for what? What have we gained from it? _No, _we are the most powerful witches to ever live, we were not meant to die in a cave Chris. We were meant to take hold of what is ours by birth—the world—and change it as we see fit, _rule _it as it should be ruled."

He turned back to Chris then, "But of course you have been too blinded to see this." He spit out, his face murderous.

He took a deep breath and turned to the side, staring through the window. "No matter though, it will be corrected when we arrive back home. _You_ will be _corrected._"

Chris felt revulsion and terror rise up in him, he had been in Wyatt's dungeon before, and it had been excruciating, and yet it had only been two days. He wasn't sure he could take anymore.

"So what, you'll just take me away while I'm trapped in these crystals? Not even give me a chance to fight, very courageous there _Wy."_ He responded, exaggerating the hated childhood nickname with a lot more bravado than he thought he had, he knew he could not win a fight with Wyatt but at least it could buy him some time.

Wyatt smirked that his trademark half quirk of the lips that had always made Chris's blood boil and responded with all the arrogance of the twice blessed. "As if it would make a difference."

Chris glared defiantly, "Well why don't we test that theory then, if you're so confident."

Wyatt looked at him appraisingly and Chris waited with baited breath for what might be his only chance to escape.

Wyatt closed his eyes and muttered under his breath, waving his hands about as he did.

"There, the attic is blocked against orbing out now." He turned to his little assassin who hadn't moved from her post in the corner.

"Bianca go keep my _family_ occupied while I have a chat with my _dear little brother_. Don't hurt them…too badly." He ordered and Chris felt his stomach drop, both his plans for escape vanishing. The sisters would not come to his aid dealing with the Phoenix and he could not escape with his orbs.

Nevertheless he squared his shoulders the best he could and locked his jaw, the memories of being strung up on the dungeon wall last time enough to push for whatever he had left to avoid that fate again.

Wyatt smirked, never unlocking his eyes from Chris as he orbed the crystals away and immediately an energy ball, not high enough to kill him but enough to do serious damage nevertheless, was launched right at his heart.

Chris dove out of his way and rolled on his feet using his telekinesis to slam Wyatt into the wall. However before his body reached it he disappeared in a flurry of orbs to be back on his feet where he had been. The attic was after-all only warded against orbing _out. _

Wyatt threw another energy ball and Chris sent it back at him with his telekinesis. He heard explosions and the sounds of the fighting coming from downstairs where the Phoenix as keeping the sisters occupied but he couldn't pay it much mind as Wyatt stayed on the offensive.

Chris pulled all the objects in the room, save the book of shadows and sent them hurling at Wyatt as hard as he could, but while they blinded him for a moment, a couple hitting the mark, he was able to incinerate them with a wave of his hand once he regained his senses.

Wyatt sent a beam of energy at him which Chris instinctively returned with own electrokinesis.

He felt sickened as he saw the glee on Wyatt's face, his brother who had always encouraged him to use this power even though he couldn't control it and it darkened him a little each time he tapped into it.

_"We are more alike than you think Chris." _Wyatt shouted over the sound of the two energies meeting, humming and combusting dangerously as each brother pressed the connection harder, trying to overpower the other.

_"I'M NOTHING LIKE YOU." _Chris shouted back furiously, his voice ragged and torn from his throat in a vicious sounding roar when he said it. Penny's lifeless eyes flashing to mind as Wyatt murdered her.

A beam rose like a wave and hit the ceiling catching it on fire as electricity rippled through the house shaking the foundation.

Chris kept pressing, both hands forward spewing his power as he poured every ounce of everything he had ever been through in his life into it.

Chris's lightening began to push Wyatt's beam back, advancing on his brother and Chris watched in disbelief.

_'It couldn't…It's not possible—is it?' _He wondered awestruck as he watched his older brother struggle, actual sweat beginning to line his face as he tried to push back.

Could he actually beat Wyatt?

Using everything he had in his soul Chris began to push with everything he had and he felt the power increase for his efforts as it continued to flow through his hands, slowly but surely pushing the beam of energy his brother sent to combat it, back as it advanced nearer and nearer to Wyatt.

The assassin rematerialized in the corner bloodied and bruised from her fight with the sisters.

_"THEY'RE COMING MY LORD, I COULDN'T HOLD THEM,"_ she said desperately, a note of pleading in her voice as she shouted to be heard over the hum of energy and explosions from the where Chris's power met Wyatt's.

Wyatt's face, stained as he tried to combat Chris's power, turned towards her in a murderous glare but almost instantly it changed, becoming coldly calculating instead.

Taking one hand from where he projected the beam, Chris watched bewildered as the action allow his own power to advance even more until it was dangerously close.

But Wyatt smirking coldly waved his hand and with a few muttered words until he was wearing a loose fitting white t-shirt and jeans with his hair cut neatly short and his face cleanly shaven so that he looked the image of an all American boy. Wounds that had not been there appeared, fake blood staining the white shirt as the glamour took effect.

Before Chris could process it the door burst open and the three sisters and Leo came running in, all of them shocked at what they saw.

"MOM YOU HAVE TO HELP ME—HE'S EVIL, HE'S TRYING TO KILL ME!" Wyatt shouted even as he began to press his full power back at Chris, halting the advance towards him of Chris's lightening.

"NO DON'T LISTEN TO HIM, HE'S LY—" Chris tried to shout but was hit with an energy ball from the Phoenix causing him to grunt out in pain and his electrokinesis to falter ever so slightly giving Wyatt a small advantage. He used his eyes to throw the Phoenix into the wall where she landed on the floor with a thud, unconscious for the moment.

"IT WAS A TRICK EARLIER MOM, HE ENCHANTED WHAT YOU SAW. IT WASN'T REALLY ME." Wyatt yelled over the roar of power with just the right amount of desperation, if Chris hadn't known the truth, he thought bitterly that even he might have fooled by.

"MOM, _DAD, PLEASE_ HELP ME!" He cried, the fake wounds still staining his fake white shirt.

Leo stepped forward then and raise his hand at Chris, sending his own electrokinesis at him and Chris split his hands, one sending energy at Wyatt and the other at his father. He felt weak, he was beginning to be entirely drained but he was holding them off although he had lost the advantage with Wyatt.

_"MOM PLEASE!" _Wyatt shouted to her, a perfect look of pleading on his face, angelic in it's shaved state so that it appeared slightly boyish.

Piper looking at her tortured son's face, raised her hands and blasted Chris off his feet allowing Leo's power to finally reach him.

He flew through the air with the electricity bolting through his body, ripping a scream from his lips, and the world went black before he even hit the ground.

OoOoO

She watched his body hit the attic floor with a thud, the fire in the ceiling beginning to burn enough that it could not be ignored but yet she managed to anyways.

As soon as he lowered his hands she began to run to Wyatt, ready to embrace her boy and have Leo heal his wounds, but the moment she took the first step she knew something was wrong.

He smirked at her coldly, just as he had in the kitchen earlier simply without the facial hair and the black clothing. Crossing his arms over his chest he took a step back and all the sudden the wounds disappeared on his body, they weren't healed, they simply melted away into nothing, and his clothes became black and his hair grew out again and he was the monster she had seen earlier.

She felt all the blood drain from her face as she watched him walk over to the fallen girl, her dark skin all to exposed from the leather assemble, and with a wave of his hand heal her and watch impassively while she crawled to her feet.

"Next time I give you a task, you better die before you fail." He said coldly before adding, "Although luckily for you it worked out conveniently enough this time."

She bowed deeply before scrambling to her feet, taking some chalk and beginning to draw on the attic wall, ignoring the flames as they climbed closer.

He turned back toward them, a bored look on his face as he walked over to Chris's fallen form, turning his face over with the toe of his boot and studying it.

"Thank you for the help Mother, it was appreciated. I always did feel that growing up you played favorites with him somewhat, perhaps to make up for _Dad—"_ He injected an astounding amount of venom into the simple title. "—but tonight I suppose you proved who you truly favor."

"Growing up?" Piper asked weakly, Leo and her sisters standing behind her just as shocked and uncertain as to what to do.

Wyatt looked up at her and the look he gave her turned her blood to ice.

"Oh yes, you and your _little peanut_ were always in the kitchen together, even when he got older it was ridiculous how attached you two were." Wyatt shook his head disdainfully, a look of disgust on his face.

"What?' Piper asked breathlessly, her eyes darting to Chris's fallen form again where he hadn't stirred yet.

Wyatt stepped looked over to the Phoenix who nodded and with a few words the portal opened before them. He conjured a rope in his hands and tied Chris's wrists together and drug him across the attic floor as he walked toward the portal.

Piper tried to freeze them, only remembering too late that he was a witch and it wouldn't work on him, but she was shocked to see it didn't work on Chris either.

Wyatt turned and smirked coldly at her again before he stepped through.

"I'll just be taking my _baby brother_ with me, _if you don't mind." _

And then they were both gone, disappearing in a swirl of white as they the portal closed behind them.

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